


Sunburn

by dreforall



Series: Flesh Canvas [2]
Category: A Song of Ice and Fire & Related Fandoms, A Song of Ice and Fire - George R. R. Martin, Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, But Jaime ain't got time for that, F/M, Gen, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Torture, Photography, Tattoos, Unrequited Lust, no relationships in this one, sansa is thirsty, there is nudity though
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-02
Updated: 2019-05-02
Packaged: 2020-02-16 07:42:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,757
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18687124
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dreforall/pseuds/dreforall
Summary: It’s only recently she’s decided to make a canvas out of her own flesh, though. Only now that her love of songs and medieval epics became something else, something sharper. Harder.Sansa experiments, and a Lannister helps.





	Sunburn

**Author's Note:**

> I don't know where this came from, either! :D  
> Unbeta'd and I'm not a native English speaker, so, there will be mistakes.

She’s on her knees, on top of an artistically disheveled bed, and at some other point in time this would be terrifying. Especially considering the green eyes staring at her, from the other side of the room.  


This doesn’t, though. The lights make her want to sweat, even in the northern cold, and the sun filtering through the closed curtains makes everything look golden and soft, almost dreamlike.  


Gold. It would be gold.

The Lannisters did love their gold.  


And few more golden than him, standing in the amber light, a camera in his hands. Jaime Lannister was once a soldier, a commander, a leader of men, but now, with his prosthetic hand and his bright future dashed before his feet, by his own choice, he’s chosen another path.  


She doesn’t quite know why she trusts him with this, or at all, but Sansa’s instincts have been honed to perfection in the whetstone of the abuse she’s survived. Ever since Ramsay and his… unfortunate death, she’s had a craving for art, and surrounding herself with artists. Sansa’s loved art her entire life, of course. She’d been trained to want pretty things, from the clothes her mother set before her to the artwork that graced Winterfell’s dark stone walls. She could tell you everything about every dead artist, every impressionist artwork, every scandal behind a canvas appraised in the millions.  


It’s only recently she’s decided to make a canvas out of her own flesh, though. Only now that her love of songs and medieval epics became something else, something sharper. Harder.  


Jaime’s just one in a long trail of acquaintances and new friends, and one she’s somewhat fond of, as much as she can be fond of anyone, especially anyone with the surname Lannister.  


Perhaps because she knows that he knows what she’s gone through at the hands of Joffrey. Perhaps because she knows that he knows the true nature of his lioness sister. Because he, like Sansa, has been under her thrall for too long, tangled in her web. There’s something between them, too, something warm and heady and unspoken. Another thing that will never happen, but that, perhaps, in another lifetime, could become something else altogether.

But this isn’t that other lifetime, though, it’s this one.

Perhaps that’s why she trusts him, even beyond his brother, who always tried to be her friend.

Jaime always had an eye for beauty. It’s no wonder why his sister rules him so; few could rival the Light of the West. In this he’s someone else altogether. Gone is the self-assured front he puts forth in the world, the swagger, the Lannister arrogance he dons so well. Here, in the dreamlike atmosphere of their carefully staged room, he’s a critic, and she’s his painted canvas.

“There,” he says, alight with inspiration, and she smiles just as he clicks. Her hands rest demurely over her sex, her buttocks pressed against her heels, and her braid lingers over her breast. She looks back over her shoulder, at the camera, the tattoo that spans the whole breadth of her back clearly visible. It’ll be a shock, she knows, a scandal, and that’s exactly what she wants.

She wants them shocked. She wants the scandal, the shame, the great shift in the tide of her reputation.

Everyone knows her as the ice princess, the gentle, sweetest Stark, Catelyn Stark née Tully reborn, younger and more beautiful. They know of her sorrow when Joffrey left her for Margaery, the vibrant Tyrell heiress, they know of the tragedy of her husband’s death, the roguish Ramsay Bolton. Her parents know only what she has told them, only the sorrow she has shown them, never the truth of her pain, never the scars that litter her back and her thighs, her belly and the hollow under her breasts.

They won’t know, even now. Sandor’s work is as masterful as Jaime’s photography is beautiful, the scars lost in the riots of colours and shadows and light in the designs painted straight into her skin.

Thinking of him, of Sandor, of his hands on her thighs as he manoeuvred her for his work, always makes her flush, all the way down to the top of her breasts. Something she’s always been ashamed of but that Ramsay, in his weird sense of love and violence, always told her is quite fetching indeed. She near misses the click of another shot, she’s so lost in the confusing mess of fear and desire that clouds her brain. Sansa can almost picture herself in her mind, eyes straight forward, lost and unfocused, head tilted slightly back, her braid brushing the bed, her hair’s so long. Jaime uses film; his recklessness may have ended in the battlefield, but it finds other venues. Film is riskier than digital, and he’s rich enough to pursue this when nobody else does.

“Lie on your side, Sansa,” he near purrs, and for someone else it might sound like a lover’s caress. It does, even for her, and she feels an involuntary tremble. Lannister or not, Jaime is… Jaime. Handsome doesn’t quite cover it. He is arresting, a force of nature. _There are no men like me,_ he says often, a smile like a knife’s edge on his lips, and there, in the amber sunshine with motes of dust dancing around him, she can’t help but agree.

It frightens and excites her, all at once; thankfully it vanishes too quickly for her to care. Sansa’s always been a dutiful girl, though. She stretches on her side, her breasts in full view to his eyes, her thigh placed to showcase the tattoos that weave like garters around it. Thorns and leaves and flowers, and little birds.

Always, the little birds.

Her thigh covers her sex just so, but she knows there’s a hint of red still visible, just a little bit. A tantalising hint, she hasn’t shaved down there in so long, and doesn’t feel inclined to, either.

He moves without warning, but somehow it doesn’t startle her. Untangles her hair from its braid, picks a fiery red lock to drape just so around her throat. Kneels before her, right in her face, bringing those remarkable green eyes too close for comfort, but somehow Sansa doesn’t even flinch.

If he finds her beautiful, if he’s attracted to her, it doesn’t show. In his faraway look she sees only the calculation of the artist, the angles, the lines, the setting that he’s looking for. Maybe this is why she trusts him in a way she doesn’t trust Tyrion, or near anyone else: he doesn’t seem to want her. Jaime Lannister photographs beauty in all its shapes and forms, women, men and more, but he’s never, not even once, touched man or woman in any inappropriate way. Never lecherous, never lustful. There are rumours, many of them, some worse than others, but there’s never been a single peep of bad behaviour in his photography sessions.

Maybe that’s why the perverse, sick part of her wants him to break and do something. A part quickly hidden, buried under the weight of memories. Play as she may with things better left unpacked, there’s only one who she truly desires, and he has neither golden hair or devastating good looks.

A breeze wanders in through the gauzy windows. She shivers, goosebumps riddling her arms and flanks. Her eyes flutter shut, dark eyelashes brushing against the paleness of her cheeks. She wears no makeup today, not the one she shows to the world, understated and natural, made to enhance what nature has given her. Not the other one, the one she wears like arbor, the one she wears to hide Sandor’s artwork. Click, click, click, goes the camera, Jaime moving around her like a shadow, a beam of light, taking different angles of her. There’s nothing empowering about this, she thinks, and just as well. It isn’t power she’s after: it’s self-destruction. She welcomes the degradation that will follow, the whispers, the gossip, the public humiliation. It's everything she wants.

Contrary to popular belief, even her own, being naked before the camera doesn’t free her, doesn’t excite her, doesn’t make her feel beautiful or special or reborn. She knows she’s beautiful; she’s had it repeated at her over and over, and it feels more like a curse than something to delight in.

Jaime’s hand is dry and warm as he pushes her should back into the bed and there she remains, legs to the side, one hand shielding her sex, the other arm draped carelessly over her chest.

“Done,” he says, not unkindly, and she smiles — her first true, honest smile.

He hands her the robe, ever the professional, and she thanks him as she pulls it over her nakedness. He smiles as well, and it’s suddenly so much lighter. Brighter. She feels almost a girl again, rather than the strange creature in that bed.

“Are you sure about it, Miss Stark?”

The last rope, the last chance before she inevitably hangs herself. She rolls her eyes, childishly yes, but what else she can do?

“Yesss."

“Well, it’s your funeral,” he snorts. She knows he understands; perhaps more than most. He's seen this in his brother's eyes, alight with drink. “You know the terrible kerfuffle this will cause, right?” He asks anyway, because all in all, he's Jaime, not Tyrion.

“That’s the idea,” her smile turns impish. This is the Sansa very few people know — the Sansa that is playful and happy, considerate and bright. Only her family knows this Sansa, and Jaime now she supposes, as well as his brother, but she’s such a rare sight even to them, these days.

“Clever girl.”

He shucks her under the chin like she’s a child. She supposes she might be, to him; he’s old enough to be her father. She resists the urge to preen.

“Let us proceed, then,” he seems brighter, happier too, that light in his eyes so familiar. For all that he pretends otherwise, she knows Jaime has a heart in that chest of his, and one that is as playful and soft as her own — and just like her own, encased in so many barbs and walls and ice that nobody can really see it.

“Soon enough, the world will know the real Sansa Stark…”

 _Or one of her many masks,_ she adds silently, to herself. The aloof seductress on the bed is not quite her, either, but he knows, and she knows, and the truth remains there, unspoken, jealously guarded.

She can’t wait.

**Author's Note:**

>  _She burns like the sun_  
>  and I can't look away  
> And she'll burn our horizons  
> make no mistakes
> 
>  _Come let the truth be shared_  
>  No one ever dared  
> To break these endless lies  
> Secretly she cries  
> \- _Sunburn_ , by Muse


End file.
